Like I said in that thread, I got a very sudden loud valve clatter. Happened instantly. I pulled the valve cover, and my No. 1 intake rocker was very very loose.

For a bunch of reasons, I suspected a lifter problem.

So I pulled the lifter. Here it is:

Does that look like a stock SBC lifter?

I noticed it seemed to be collapsed. By that, I mean when I looked down the top of the lifter I noticed that nothing was pushing up against the snap ring. I assume there is supposed to be some spring pressure that pushes the guts of the lifter up against the snap ring. Here's a pic, see how the snap ring isn't doing anything.

When I shook the lifter and turned it upside down, it rattled, like there was loose "stuff" inside it. That's not right, is it?

So I pulled the snap ring out, and pulled the lifter apart. I found some bits of metal in it, along with what looks like a broken piece.

Here's the exploded view:

This little metal piece is broken up, you can see the broken edges on it:

I'm not sure what that piece does, but it looks like it is supposed to be positioned like this:

After cleaning it out, when I reassemble the lifter, it has spring pressure now and presses up against the snap ring.

So, given the metal pieces and broken piece inside the lifter, and it's lack of spring when I took it out, obviously something was wrong with it.

So, my thought was, if this is just a stock lifter, to buy a new one, take it apart, and put the new "guts" inside my old lifter case. That way it should be ok with my cam still.

Maybe even use everything from my old lifter, but just replace the broken piece.

Does that sound ok?

Also, is this lifter still good? I think give the wear pattern on it, it was still rotating fine. But the bottom doesn't look like it is convex to me. It looks flat, or maybe even ever so slightly concave. Hard to see in pics, but here's my best shots:

Scrounge up an old lifter someone was going to pitch and get the piece you need to fix your lifter and put it back in with some good lube on it. While it's down you might want to pull a couple more and check the bottoms to see what they look like. Don't know how many miles your cam and lifters have on them but that one does appear to no longer be convex. Put a straight edge across them with a light behind it, that will tell the tale real quick. You might want to be thinking about a new cam and lifters down the road.

If it was me and depending on budget....you have done all this work..i would replace all lifters and the cam...for less then 200.00 you have all new lifters and cam..what if another one is on the verge of failing i am sure you dont want to tear the engine apart again..

dont forget to let those lifters soak in light oil overnight!
I would change them all cuz the others could do the same.
and use a bunch of assembly lube on the foot to break them in properly.
then do an oil change

dont forget to let those lifters soak in light oil overnight!
I would change them all cuz the others could do the same.
and use a bunch of assembly lube on the foot to break them in properly.
then do an oil change

the last set of lifters i installed it said not to soak in oil...my advice is read the instructions

As far as the lifter being concave or flat, I'm not sure if it is. I went to the parts store and looked as some lifters, and mine looks about the same to me. The convex-ness of these must be very, very small.

But I don't have any reason to believe my cam or the lifter is worn. The engine has 40K miles on it, has been well maintained. It seems at this point there just was an internal failure in this one lifter.

If you compare the innards of my lifter with this chart, it looks like mine is a Johnson lifter. Agree or disagree?

(Click on the chart to make it bigger)

So my thought is to try and find a new Johnson lifter, and simply transplant all the innards from the new one into my old lifter case. This is very easy to do. Then I should have a "new" lifter, but with my old lifter case, so there shouldn't be any break-in concerns.

I've not been able to find a lifter like this, though. All my local shops have Seal Power, Federal Mogul or Clevitt, and those are different from what I have.

I'll try calling Johnson tomorrow.

If I can't find these new, my second thought is to find a used one, and transfer either all the innards, or just the broken disc, into my old one.

If I can't find used ones, I suppose I'd have to put a new lifter in. But I'd just replace the one bad one. It doesn't make sense to me to replace the others, which are already mated to the cam, and which have no problem at this time.

I am hesitant to replace the lifter, though, since I've heard that putting a new lifter on an old cam is certain death for the cam. But I've heard conflicting opinions on that, so I'm not sure.

Replacing a lifter isn't that big of a task, because it's just a matter of pulling the manifold while it's in the car. Maybe an hour work. Putting in a new cam is a major project, because this engine is in a Porsche 914, and the engine and trans both have to come out to get the cam out. This is quite a bit of work, the axles have to come off, the exhaust, trans linkage and cables, etc. etc. And the engine has to drop out from the bottom, and go back in from the bottom. I've done it before, but it's a fairly major project.

I sent pics of my lifter and internals to Johnson, and they confirmed it is a Johnson lifter.

I was able to get a replacement Oil Metering Valve (the small disc with 4 holes in it, as shown on the chart above). I cleaned out my old lifter with solvent and blew it out with compressed air, oiled it and rebuilt it using the new disc.

Put it all back together, started the engine, the lifter pumped up fine and it's running great again.

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